Chapter One Fiona #3
‘I know the circumstances aren’t ideal, but—’
‘The circumstances aren’t ideal?! You abandoned them!’
‘How about we take a quick five-minute break?’ Kavita suggested.
‘I thought it would be easier for you,’ Matt said. ‘Not to have to see me. And for them not to see me either for a bit, so they didn’t get confused.’
‘Confused?’
‘Fiona—’
‘They know what you fucking did, Matt! They know you chose her—’
‘Her name is Laura.’
‘—and your other kids over them, and they’re going to have to carry that for the rest of their lives!
Do you know how long it took for Rosie to stop crying herself to sleep?
How Georgia keeps having nightmares about waking up all alone?
How angry Lex is? Do you really think I’m going to let you see them again, after what you fucking did to them? ’
‘That’s not your choice to make, Fiona,’ Matt said. ‘That’s what we’re all here to decide. And if you could calm down and stop swearing at me, maybe we could figure it out like adults.’
‘Don’t tell her to calm down,’ Chess said sharply.
‘Don’t address my client, Ms Shaw,’ Matt’s lawyer shot back.
‘I just want my kids to meet their siblings!’
The words erupted suddenly from Laura, the first thing she’d said the whole meeting.
‘I just want Micah and Nikki to meet their siblings,’ she repeated, flushing bright red as one hand came to rest on top of her belly.
‘I know this whole situation is a mess. I’m so sorry, Fiona, I really am.
I can’t imagine how tough this is for you.
But we need to think about what’s best for the kids – and surely what’s best is for us all to try and be a family? ’
Her eyes were wide and earnest and well-meaning, and it made me want to scream until my throat was bloody.
Matt put his arm around her, thumb tracing protective circles on her shoulder the same way he used to do to me. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘We have to put the kids first.’
Dots started swimming in front of my eyes. ‘Kavita,’ I said, ‘did you say something about a five-minute break?’
I only just made it to the bathroom before I threw up the entire contents of my stomach – everything except the humiliation, which no matter how hard I retched, would not come out.
Afterwards, Kavita and Chess tried to reassure me that everything was going to be all right.
‘I know it might not feel like it, but this is a good result,’ Kavita said.
‘We could take him to court, of course, but given there was no abuse of the children, it’s not likely we’d get a ruling for no visitation whatsoever.
At least this way most of the contact they have with Matt will be by phone or video call, and none of it will be without you being present. ’
‘He doesn’t deserve to even look at them,’ I sniffed. I’d managed not to cry in the meeting, but back in Kavita’s office, the waterworks had started.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Chess agreed. ‘But if we went to court and pushed for an extremely hardline custody agreement, that might reopen the discussions around child support – why should he pay for kids he’s not allowed to see?
would be the line his lawyers would run – and we could end up with a much worse outcome. ’
‘Exactly,’ Kavita said. ‘Settling this now in mediation is much better for everyone involved, Fiona. I promise.’
I ached, suddenly, for my children. I wanted to put my arms around the three of them and hug them as tight as I could, holding them to me even once the girls started wriggling and Lex told me that they’d reached their quota of hugs for the month, thank you very much; to tell them I loved them and that I would protect them and that I would never, ever leave them.
Kavita opened her desk drawer and took out a bottle of prosecco. ‘We won today,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘And you should celebrate, okay?’
Chess’s phone started vibrating. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got a couple more days before I have to go back to Sydney. How about I take you and the kids and Sadie and Jonah out to dinner tomorrow, somewhere nice? My treat.’
I nodded. I didn’t have the energy to do anything else.
The house was quiet when I got home, my footsteps echoing on the floorboards as I dropped my handbag on the kitchen bench, put Kavita’s prosecco in the fridge, and stooped to pick up Georgia’s discarded stuffed elephant.
I pressed it to my face for a moment, inhaling her smell before putting it on her bed.
Maybe she’d take her elephant with her when she and Rosie and Lex met Micah and Nikki.
Lex, who was reserved at the best of times, was almost certainly going to refuse to speak to them, but the girls had never met another kid they couldn’t bulldoze into being friends.
Here, Georgia might say, marching up to Nikki and thrusting her elephant into her hands. Come and play with us.
We’d get through the visit. I’d lull myself into thinking the worst was over. But then we’d all be sitting around the dinner table, and When can we see Daddy again? Rosie would say. I miss him.
I like having a little sister, Georgia would add. Can we go and live with them?
I clutched the back of the couch as the world started to swim in front of my eyes again. ‘Stop catastrophising,’ I ordered myself.
It was something I’d been working on with my therapist, although I wasn’t sure I’d made much progress.
I’d always had a tendency to get ahead of myself, but when Matt left, it had got a million times worse.
The smallest thing could send me spiralling, unable to breathe because of the endless torrent of worst-case scenarios.
An unfamiliar car parked on the street might belong to a banker here to foreclose on me.
My dad’s name flashing up on my phone might be because he was about to tell me that money doesn’t grow on trees, Fiona, it’s time for you to stand on your own two feet.
The smallest sideways glance from another parent might snowball into a future where the kids got taken away from me because I was too much of a mess to be a mother.
Once I’d taken several deep breaths and was reasonably sure I wasn’t going to throw up again, I sat down at the kitchen table to make some calls.
The first was to the kids’ therapist, to make appointments for them as soon as possible.
Matt effectively ghosting us had already traumatised them enough.
I shuddered to think what seeing him again – not to mention meeting their half-siblings – might do.
The second was to my own therapist, which was going to put a strain on our monthly budget but definitely wasn’t optional, given the circumstances.
Then I called Jonah. ‘How did it go?’ he asked the instant he answered the phone. ‘Did you win?’
I resisted the urge to sigh. Did you win? was such a quintessentially Fisher thing to ask.
I gave him a brief outline of the child support and visitation agreement.
‘While I’d much rather pretend Matt and his other family don’t exist, I suppose that isn’t realistic,’ I said, trying to force some brightness into my voice.
‘At least he has to fork out a bunch of money. You should have seen the way Chess steamrolled his lawyers in there, Jonah, she was amazing.’
Jonah made a sound in the back of his throat. He’d never quite forgiven Chess for the falling out she’d had with Sadie earlier in the year, even though she’d gone to exorbitant lengths to make it up since.
‘Seriously.’ I shifted the phone to my other ear. ‘Kavita too – they were both so great. Without them, I would have completely embarrassed myself. Poured a jug of water over Matt and Laura.’
‘He brought her with him?’
‘Oh. Um. Yes.’
Jonah was silent for several moments after I explained. ‘He brought his mistress to your divorce mediation?’ he said at last. ‘And she’s pregnant?’
My scalp started to prickle. How the fuck did you marry this man? he didn’t say, but I heard anyway.
I loved my brother. I really did. The relationship between Jonah, me and our older brother Elias had been distant for a long time, but when Matt had left, they’d both come through for me in ways I never would have anticipated.
Elias had taken a leave of absence from his research fellowship in Germany so he could stay with me for a while and help with the kids.
Jonah had gone even further. It had been coincidence that brought him to Hobart – his then-girlfriend Sadie had got a job at a university here, which led to them getting married so she could bring him with her on a partner hire – but since he’d been here, both he and Sadie had helped me so much.
So yes, I loved him. I was more grateful to him than I would ever be able to express.
But I could never forget that he – just like the rest of my family – had told me not to marry Matt, that I would be making a massive, life-ruining mistake if I did; and so sometimes, even though he didn’t mean to, he made me feel so fucking stupid.
‘—can’t believe he’d do that to you,’ Jonah was saying. ‘And what’s he going to do now? Make a long weekend of it? Parade her around Hobart?’
My prickling scalp turned into another full-blown cold sweat. I hadn’t even thought of that.
Matt, taking Laura out to dinner. Matt, showing her the sights of the city. Matt, with his arm around her, inevitably running into Michelle or another one of the parents from school.
Their eyes drifting to Laura’s pregnant belly.
The way all the WhatsApp groups would fucking light up.
‘I’m so sorry he did that to you, Fi,’ Jonah said. ‘What a piece of shit.’
I made myself laugh. If I didn’t laugh, I would cry. Again. ‘Yeah. He is.’